"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Make sure the common core doesn’t get credit for test score inflation

Make sure the common core doesn’t get credit for test score inflation
S Krashen

Please don’t get too excited when initial common core tests appear to produce low scores. New tests typically result in low scores, and then scores rise for the next few years as teachers and students get used to the test format and content, and teachers learn how to teach to the test (Linn, Gaue and Sanders, 1990). I predict that the Common core will get credit for this bogus “improvement.” The improvement will stop after a few years, but by then the apparent success of the common core will be considered “proven.”

This is exactly what happened after California dismantled bilingual education. In 1998, the same year Proposition 227 passed, a new test, the SAT9, was introduced. Scores went up for everybody the first year, and 227 got the credit. Unnoticed was the fact that scores also went up by the same amount for districts that kept bilingual education, and after two years, there were no more gains for anybody. And all the controlled studies showing that bilingual education was superior to all-English for English literacy development was ignored.

Common Core Standards: Early Results From Kentucky Are In http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/12/04/common-core-standards-early-results-from-kentucky-are-in
Scores Drop on Ky.'s Common Core-Aligned Tests, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/11/02/11standards.h32.html
Linn, R., Graue, E., & Sanders, N. 1990. Comparing state and district test results to national norms: The validity of claims that "everyone is above average." Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice 10: 5-14.
Krashen, S. Why Did Test Scores Go up in California? A Response to Unz/Reinhard. http://www.languagepolicy.net/archives/Krash10.htm